|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Hundreds of Alameda County workers picketed last Monday at the Lake Merritt Amphitheater in Oakland to demand that county officials fill thousands of vacant county jobs.
The vacancies mean residents are not getting the services that a fully staffed county can deliver, according to the Service Employees International Union Local 1021.
Workers too are suffering from burnout.
“We are working understaffed,” said Tina Tapia, an administrative assistant in the public health department. “We are doing the job of two to three people. You don’t have time to take your break.”
Tapia assists with the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — better known as the WIC program.
She said some workers are being denied vacations. The county is short 2,611 full-time equivalent workers, which is almost 25% of the county’s workforce.
Tapia said county managers seem to be brushing off the problem.
Workers plan to speak with the county supervisors individually to see how they feel about the problem and where they stand on the issue.
Board of Supervisors President Nate Miley did not respond Monday morning to a request for comment.
Alameda County workers have been without a contract since December. Workers started negotiating in July. Tapia said it doesn’t seem as if managers are taking workers’ concerns seriously.
Tapia is part of the union bargaining team, which were set to be back at the bargaining table later in the week.
SEIU represents workers in behavioral health, in the social service agency and others. Members of the community and from other unions joined in the picketing Monday.
“Our community has suffered enough,” a letter from the workers to county administrators said. “Alameda County’s workforce has struggled enough: for months at the bargaining table, and for years in their workplaces they have attempted to make clear the scope and severity of this understaffing crisis.”
